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ADVANCEMENT 



MEANS AND METHODS 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION 



LECTURE 



DELIVERED 



BEFORE THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF INSTRUCTION 



AT ITS FOURTEENTH ANNIVERSARY AT PITTSFIELD, MS, 



BY DAVID P. PAGE, 
Principal of the English High School,, Newburyport. 



BOSTON: X*^ 

WILLIAM D. TICKNOR & CO., 

Corner of Washington and School Sts, 
MDCCCXLIV. 



Pittsfield, August 16, 1843. 

D. P. Page having delivered a Lecture on the " Advance- 
ment in the Means and Methods of Public Instruction," 

On motion of Mr. Pettes, voted that two thousand copies 
of Mr. Page's Lecture be printed by the Censors for gratu- 
itous circulation. 

Solomon Adams, Sec'y. 



.-ft. 






LECTURE 



Olf 



ADVANCEMENT IN THE MEANS AND METHODS 



OF 



PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 



Among all the various blessings bequeathed to us by 
the ancestors of New England — if we except religious 
freedom — none has stronger claims for our attachment or 
demands more imperiously our warmest gratitude than 
their early institution of the Common School System. As 
if endowed with wisdom beyond the age in which they 
lived, and with a liberality far above the people from 
whom they came out, they were the first to declare — if 
not the first to entertain — the important doctrine, that 
religious and civil liberty, in the broadest sense, could 
have a permanent foundation only in a general diffusion 
of intelligence in the whole community. They were 
the very first men to declare positively against an exclu- 
sive aristocracy in mental cultivation ; the first to open 



4 MR. 

freely and fully to all classes and to both sexes the foun- 
tains of knowledge ; the first to establish and maintain at 
the public expense, wherever they felled the forest and 
founded a settlement — second in their affections only to 
the ordinances of religion — the means of public in- 
struction. 

And perhaps it is no censurable pride in us that we 
fondly — and, it may be, somewhat boastfully — repeat the 
fact, that the spot which is now the site of the city of 
Salem, in the county of Essex and commonwealth of 
Massachusetts, was the locality of the very first public 
free school the world ever saw ! 

To us, then, who are met within the limits of a State 
so honorably distinguished in the annals of human im- 
provement ; to us, who are the descendants of a New 
England ancestry and have been nurtured amid New 
England institutions; standing as we now do between the 
illustrious dead on the one hand and the rising progeny 
of such a noble parentage on the other ; charged as we 
are with the responsible office of ministering with pure 
hands and devoted hearts to the intellectual growth of a 
rising multitude, and of perpetuating to others yet to 
come the blessings we have richly received, — it cannot be 
uninteresting to pause a few moments, by the way, and in- 
quire what improvements have been introduced, and what 
advancement .we have made in an enterprise so worthy 
of its founders and so necessary to our very existence as 
a free and self-governing people. 

The subject of this lecture, is the "advancement 

IN THE MEANS AND METHODS OF PUBLIC INSTRUC 
TION." 

It will scarcely be necessary, perhaps, to discuss the 



ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 5 

question whether there has been any advancement in 
these matters ; the memory of any one present will fur- 
nish sufficient data to settle that point. The question 
for us to settle is, " How great has been the advance- 
ment and in what does it consist ? " 

No remark is more common than that so frequently 
made by those who now visit our school-rooms, or in 
any other way are brought acquainted with the condition 
of our schools, namely : " The youth of the present 
day have great advantages compared with those enjoyed 
by their parents." But while we may safely assume 
that some improvement has been attained, we should not 
be too confident as to the degree of it, until after due 
examination we are able to lay our hand upon the items 
of our educational thrift. We live in an age, it must 
not be forgotten, of experimenting ; an age which avoids 
too much, perhaps, the slow process of patient induc- 
tion, but which impetuously rushes forward to its conclu- 
sions by overleaping the premises ; an age in which the 
clamorous pretender is nearly as likely to be greeted 
and caressed, as the more worthy, but more rare com- 
modity — genuine worth ; an age in which a high-sounding 
name often — like the title of the book which Dr. 'John- 
son compared to a " cannon placed at the door of a pig- 
sty " — announces to the world but very insignificant reali- 
ties ; an age in some things over-credulous, and hence 
very frequently imposed upon ; and if the age have all 
these characteristics, it will involve no hazard to allege 
that such an age may be an age of "humbugs." I 
would not be severe upon the profession of my choice. 
I would be candid. But when we find ourselves sur- 
rounded by impositions ; when our politics have become 
1* 



6 MR. page's lecture. 

a profession, under the robes of which patriots suck out 
the life-blood of the republic to aggrandize their party, and 
withal to aggrandize themselves ; when our public financiers 
and fund-keepers depart from their post and their country, 
because their funds and their integrity had first departed 
from them ; when our mercantile enterprise is" often but 
speculation without a capital, and bankruptcy is a surer 
road to wealth than a continuance in a safe and honest 
business ; when the poor debtor can frequently afford 'to 
maintain a more splendid style of living and a costlier 
equipage than his "rich" creditor; when our systems 
of reform have some of them come to need themselves 
a reform ; when the advocates of peace and moderation 
" get by the ears " among themselves, and quarrel and 
call hard names about the measures to be used in their 
warfare ; when the apostles of " free discussion," and 
''liberty of speech," and " rights of conscience," some- 
times endeavor to hiss down an opponent, or perhaps 
essay to enter and forestall the forum or the pulpit dedi- 
cated to another cause and appropriated to other voices ; 
w r hen even our holy religion is sometimes distorted by 
false lights and " new lights" and extravagances, which, 
while they humble and grieve the believer, invite the 
derision and the scoff of the infidel, — I say, when all 
these things abound, and a thousand others quite as in- 
congruous and quite as wild, — who can w T onder that the 
cause of education should contract the general disease, 
and bring forth among its precious fruits some of the 
excrescences and corruptions so common to the times? 
We might fairly anticipate such results, and accordingly 
we find them. We have our literary reformers, our 



ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 7 

literary financiers, our literary bankrupts and pretenders, 
and our literary " new lights." 

I have remarked that our times are characterized by a 
fondness for high-sounding names. For examples of 
this, we may notice the business advertisements in our 
public papers, and the signs in our public streets. The 
dealer in house furniture, however limited his stock or 
his business, is sure to have the imposing " Warehouse' 1 
placed over his door. The man who sells oysters in 
some dismal ground room, or perhaps at the corner of 
the street from a board resting upon two flour barrels 
beneath an awning, solicits custom from the passer-by, 
with the attractive " Oyster Saloon," painted in black 
letters above his head. The man who lives by shaving 
his customers has ceased to hang his hopes for a liveli- 
hood upon the spirally-painted pole, so long the unequivo- 
cal mark of distinction for his craft; he now invites cus- 
tomers by the sonorous cognomen of " Gentlemen's 
Establishment." The industrious young lady, who 
has learned the art of fitting dresses for her neighbors, 
and has opened what was formerly a shop in the country 
village, now denominates it "Emporium of Fashion." 

Our rail-road people, in order to designate the place 
where may be seen the strange mixture of men and 
machinery, cars and coaches, hackmen and hangers-on, 
lumber and luggage, — the "great trunk, little trunk, 
band-box and bundle" of the traveling public, mingled 
in admirable confusion, have introduced among us that 
awkward foreign word "depot;" and as if there were a 
charm in the word, hucksters in every department have 
adopted it as best fitting their purpose; and we have our 
" Clothing depots,", our " Furnishing depots," our " Pill 



8 MR. 

depots ;" and last, though not least, our dealers in cheap 
literature, having collected together all the varieties of 
trash which the press has vomited forth upon a surfeited 
people, from the vilest penny sheet to the latest transla- 
tion of a French love story, have taken to themselves the 
•title of " Literary Depots." 

Precisely after the same style, the credulity of our 
people is not unfrequently addressed in the public papers, 
in which the skill of teachers and the excellence of cer- 
tain Academies, Institutes, Literary Saloons, Classic 
Halls, and the like, are so pompously heralded, that one 
is almost compelled to doubt whether he has not just 
awoke from the reverie of a hundred years, and found 
himself among the incredibles of the twentieth century. 
The u Royal Road" to learning, so long sought for, has 
ceased to be a desideratum. As for study and diligence, 
they are discarded as old-fashioned and unworthy means 
of becoming wise and great. In some of these adver- 
tisements, it is signified that the pupil shall be amused by 
the magic art of the teacher, unconsciously into the 
depths of learning, and that his severest toil shall be lis- 
tening to very attractive lectures, illustrated by uncom- 
monly brilliant experiments, which shall make him thor- 
oughly acquainted with great things, not only without 
study, but without thought. Reading is to be taught in 
a month; Philosophy, Natural and Moral, in another 
month; Chemistry in two lectures; Music and Arithme- 
tic in a fortnight ; Book-keeping in three days, and 
Penmanship, (I quote from an advertisement before me), 
" even where the hand is most awkward and cramped — 
to a pupil of any age, from seven years to sixty, impart- 



ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 9 

ing the most finished style, in only twelve lessons, occu- 
pying the short space of six hours." 

Nor is all this pretension uncalled for ; a demand in 
the community has called forth the supply; the cre- 
dulity has welcomed the imposition. Open almost any 
paper of wide circulation, and you may see that which 
will remind you of the imposing sign hung out by 
" A certain spectacle maker, I 've forgot his name;" 

and if you will look about you, you may also see those, 
who will aptly enough remind you of the swain, who in 
the hope of supplying a trifling defect in his early edu- 
cation, applied to him for " helps to read.'''' 

Before we assume, then, that the cause of public in- 
struction has moved onward gradually, though slowly, 
from the settlement of New England to the present time- 
frankness demands that we should confess the impedi- 
ments that have clogged its course; — nay, ingenuousness 
and truth alike demand that we should point out the im- 
positions of the artful and the mistakes of the injudi- 
cious. Every innovation, then, has not been an improve- 
ment. When men began to discover that the old 
methods of teaching were somewhat too mechanical and 
in some instances too abstract, many went quite too far 
in explaining beforehand to the mind of the scholar, 
what it would have been better for him to study out by 
the exercise of his own ingenuity. School books soon 
followed, so filled with colloquial explanations and child- 
ish illustrations, as literally to " bury up" the little solid 
matter they contained; and in some, so abundant had 
this small talk become, that had their use been long con- 
tinued, I am persuaded that the minds not only of pupils, 
but of the teachers, must have been essentially cramped 



10 MR. PAGE'S LECTURE. 

and enervated by them. This was an extreme even 
worse than the one it was intended to cure, on the ground 
that too much assistance either to the physical or mental 
efforts of a child, is decidedly worse than too little. 

So when it began to be discovered that the govern- 
ment in some of the old fashioned schools was too aus- 
tere and too tyrannical — too much enforced by the 
severer modes of punishment, such as Solomon recom- 
mended as sometimes salutary, there were many who 
rose up to favor the opposite extreme; and in their zeal 
to denounce all severity, were ready to sacrifice all order 
and respect on the part of their pupils. " This barba- 
rism," we were every where told, " was a relic of the 
dark ages, and, like a belief in witchcraft and apparitions, 
was to be abandoned, amid the daylight of the present 
age. 77 This idea, promulgated by teachers, gained some 
popularity with parents, and a jubilee was forthwith pro- 
claimed to the pupils of very many schools; the rod, 
that old and faithful servant, was snatched from its digni- 
fied and time-honored resting place in the affections of 
the lovers of good order and subordination, and with 
ruthless zeal, excommunicated as a traitor and a tyrant, — 
and with reckless hand consigned to the doom of many 
an ancient martyr. In some instances, the reform was 
carried so far as to introduce a republican form of gov- 
ernment, in which the teacher scarcely reserved the " one 
man" power of exercising the veto. The general pro- 
clamation of the doctrine that punishment was unneces- 
sary, if not absolutely cruel, — announced as it was with 
applause by the public lecturer, and repeated at the fire- 
side by kind-hearted and indulgent parents, did very 
much to introduce a spirit of insubordination in many of 



ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 11 

our schools, which it will require time and persevering 
firmness to subdue. Probably no cause has operated so 
strongly to make corporal punishment, of the severer 
kind, necessary, as this attempt to over-do a desirable 
reform. Many teachers worked their way into popular- 
ity by publicly declaring their conversion to the new 
doctrine; but many found the crown they thus acquired 
to be a very difficult one to retain. The doctrine 
once embraced and proclaimed in their schools, was 
attended by such unseemly developements in its results, 
that not a few teachers were reduced to the alternative of 
abandoning their new light, or of abandoning their pro- 
fession ; or, perhaps, adding a third horn to the dilem- 
ma, they found relief for themselves by taking charge of 
a female school. This, like the last mentioned extreme, 
is working its own cure; and as the light is most precious 
to such as have groped their way through darkness to 
seek it, — so, I doubt not, the cause of truth on this point 
will in the end gain much strength, on account of the 
fact, that so many of the profession have made the cir- 
cuit of this error to find it. 

Notwithstanding these admissions of error, it cannot 
be denied, I think, that the cause of public instruction, 
in its means and methods, has undergone a gradual, and 
in many respects a very decided improvement. Perhaps 
this improvement is a variable quantity — greater in some 
places than in others ; yet taken in general terms, it is 
capable of admeasurement, at least by approximation. 
The amount of improvement will be best shown by tak- 
ing a few specific items, and running a comparison between 
their condition as it was and as it is. It will be the object 
of the following pages to institute such a comparison, — 



12 MR. page's lecture. 



1. IN REGARD TO SCHOOL HOUSES. 

Whatever the structure and conveniences of the first 
school houses in New England were, there is no account 
of them to my knowledge handed down to the present 
generation. It is sufficient praise for our ancestors that 
they established free schools, and provided accommoda- 
tions for them of any kind. Nor is it necessary that we 
should go farther back than fifty years, to find structures, 
between which and the modern ones a comparison suffi- 
ciently striking for our purpose may be traced. Indeed 
I may go no farther than to some existing relics of a past 
generation, — and it may be that all who hear me have 
already in their own mind, and perhaps have had, at 
some past time connected with their own school-day 
experience, the very pattern, which will answer our 
present purpose. 

In examining quite a large number of these declining 
monuments of ill-adapted ingenuity, I have found that 
a few prominent characteristics mark them all. It seems 
to have been deemed essential that these edifices, built for 
the accommodation of all, should have a place in the very 
centre of the district, determined by actual admeasurement; 
and wherever the rods and links should fix that point, 
whether hill or valley, forest or meadow, " highway or 
byway" — there, and there only must the edifice go up, 
and thither must the children wend their course, perhaps 
far away from the village, far away from the principal 
road, (an object of no small consequence, particularly in 
winter), far away from a suitable site for any building, to 
gain their first impressions of school. 



ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 13 

It would seem also to have been considered quite 
essential that each of these buildings should be furnished 
with the most ample fire places " gaping ivide;" and at 
the same time with slanting floors — the seats rising one 
above another, suggesting to the modern visitor the idea 
that they were designed for vast roasting places, in which 
each victim could have an equal chance to see and appre- 
ciate the towering flames, as they rose in columns to the 
elevated mantel piece and roared up the incandescent 
flue. Of the capacity of these fire places, none can 
better judge than those who have taken their <c turn" of 
a winter's morning, to "make the fire" for a country 
school, some twenty-five years ago. Who does not 
well remember the rotund back-log of a fathom long ; 
the ample bowlders from a neighboring stone wall for 
andiron^, the " forestick" of a sled's length, to sup- 
port the superincumbent mass of clefts, small-wood 
p-.id chips, to the amount of the third part of a cord, to 
be consumed for an ordinary day's warming of the dis- 
trict school house? Who does not recollect the merry 
sound of axes, when the larger boys spent most of the 
afternoon in chopping at the door the fuel for the next 
yay's burning? 

7 have mentioned the sloping floor upon which it was 
difficu't to stand at ease, if not to stand at all ; and which 
in the ascent might remind one of the worthy Pilgrim's 
Hill of Difficulty, and in the descent, of his approach to 
the Valley of Humiliation, in which, in the quaint lan- 
guage of Bunyan, " it were dangerous for one to catch a 
slip" I might go on to mention the inconvenient fix- 
tures of these rooms; the seats from which dangled 
many an aching limb, hopeless of finding rest or a resting 
2 



14 MR. page's lecture. 

place; the forms without backs, upon which many a 
weary urchin sank — to sleep; and slept — to fall; and 
fell — to electrify the little community with an extempore 
solo, in which like some discarded politician, he deigned 
to " define his position." 

I might also mention the ill-jointed wainscoting by 
which the room was on all sides amply ventilated; the 
shattered ceiling; the scanty light; the marks of juvenile 
industry, in the shape of scorings and engravings upon 
the desks; the grotesque and even obscene drawings 
upon the walls; the scanty play-ground; the absence of 
all out-door accommodations; the dreary aspect about 
the premises of many of these buildings; the gloomy 
loneliness of the location, where, at certain seasons of 
the year at least, in the language of Sprague, " the rank 
thistle nodded in the wind, and the wild fox dug his hole 
unscared." I might allude to the absence of taste, either 
in the style of the buildings themselves, or in any little 
decoration about them. But all this would be but re- 
peating what has been well and justly said before, and 
what every observing person has so often witnessed as to 
render the recital unnecessary. 

But I gladly turn from a topic so unflattering to the 
taste and ingenuity of those we otherwise cheerfully 
applaud, and would point you to the very many new and 
elegant structures which now adorn our towns and vil- 
lages. By the agency of several associations and seve- 
ral distinguished individuals, a correct taste has been dif- 
fused through the community so generally, that an un- 
sightly, ill-constructed new school house is almost an 
anomaly. Much ingenuity has been concentrated upon 
the items of ventilating, lighting, warming and furnishing 



ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 15 

the school room, so that in all these respects, little is left 
to be done, certainly little to be known. It has been 
again and again demonstrated that a small sum of money, 
expended in ornamenting a building of this sort, particu- 
larly in the way of painting both within and without, is 
capital well invested; and that a good return will be 
realized in the preservation of the property, not only 
from the wastes of the weather and the trespasses of 
time, but also from that swifter and more deplorable 
spoiling, which is the result of youthful activity coupled 
with youthful destructiveness. While an unsightly, ill- 
contrived and unornamented structure will, as it were, 
invite their depredations, they will reverence good taste 
and a fair finish so far, as to restrain the love of mischief, 
ere it desecrates and despoils. 

The fitness of things has now become the question, 
and so widely diffused is the information on this point, 
that we confidently set down the improvement in the 
construction of school houses as one of the greatest 
achievements of the age, and one of the strongest proofs 
of advancement in the enterprize of public instruction.* 

II. A COMPARISON OF OLD AND NEW SCHOOL BOOKS 
WILL SHOW A DECIDED ADVANCEMENT. 

In the schools of the Puritan Fathers, the book in 
English chiefly relied on was the Bible. In those 

* Those who wish to see the most able essays on the structure of 
school houses, should obtain the address before the Essex County 
Teachers' Association by Rev. G. B. Perry, and the excellent Re- 
port of the Hon. Horace Mann, secretary of the Massachusetts Board 
of Education. 



16 MR. 

schools little else than reading, writing and a very little 
of arithmetic, was aimed at. The writing was taught by 
the written copy of the teacher, and arithmetic was 
taught by his dictation and by exercises written by him- 
self in the cyphering books of the scholars. In these 
books he usually transcribed the more important rules, so 
that each scholar's manuscript book was little other than 
an arithmetic on a very small scale. Authors of new 
systems were not then found going about the country, 
proposing to supply schools with entire new sets in ex- 
change for old ones, in order to get their works intro- 
duced. All branches of learning beyond those above 
enumerated, were confined to the Grammar schools or 
the University, where Latin and Greek were perhaps 
more thoroughly taught than they have ever been in this 
country since the days of Cotton Mather. All who in 
that day learned grammar, learned it through those lan- 
guages. 

This account of the studies and school books of the 
earliest New England schools will apply with very little 
alteration to the whole period down to the Revolution. 
The Psalter and Dilworth's Spelling Book and the 
New England Primer had been added to the list; but 
the branches taught, and the manner of teaching them, 
continued very much the same down nearly to the close 
of the last century. Tt has indeed been said that ivriting 
and spelling were better taught in those schools than they 
are at present. If this be true, which, (judging from the 
orthography to be found in most"* of the old Record 
Books, — and those books, it is presumed, were the work 
of chosen men,) may be fairly doubted, — I say if this be 
true, it is no more than should be expected of them, as 



ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 17 

these branches probably received more than one half the 
attention and time of both teacher and pupil. 

Several very valuable books for that day came to light 
near the close of the last, and the beginning of the pre- 
sent century. Authors began to multiply on this side of 
the water, and Arithmetics, Geographies, Readers, &c, 
some of considerable merit, began to appear. 

To any one, however, who will examine the books 
used in the schools from twenty-five to fifty years ago, 
one prominent defect in them will be apparent. It is 
this; — they address the memory rather than the reasoning 
powers. They aim at imparting knowledge mainly, not 
at disciplining the faculties of the mind. They seek to 
be remembered, rather than understood. Had I time, 
and were it not invidious — for even old school-books 
must be treated reverently — I could point out various 
illustrations of the truth of this remark; as it is, I must 
rely on the memory and observation of those who hear 
me. 

I shall venture to mention the book which I consider 
the pioneer in this country in the great reform in school 
books. It is a book of small size, of no very loud pre- 
tensions, but it is the book which has done more in 
this country, not only for the particular branch upon 
which it treats, but for most other branches, by its indi- 
rect influence upon the character of teachers and authors, 
and the method of imparting instruction in general, than 
any other that has been written in our language. It is 
that little volume called "First Lessons in Arith- 
metic," by Warren Colburn. In this book of 172 
pages, Mr. Colburn has opened the principles of arith- 
metic, in a strictly analytic way, as he says, after the 
2* 



18 

method of Pestalozzi, and in this book, the reason — the 
understanding is addressed, and led on step by step, till 
the whole is taken into the mind and becomes a part of 
it; the memory is little thought of, yet the memory can- 
not let it slip; for what has been drunk in as it were by 
the understanding and made a part of the mind, the mind 
never forgets ! To how many a way-worn and weary 
pupil under the old systems — to how many a proficient 
who could number up his half dozen authors and twice 
that number of manuscript cyphering books, — to how 
many a teacher even who had taught the old systems 
winter after winter, and yet saw but as "through a glass 
darkly," — to how many such was this book on its ap- 
pearance, their u First Lessons in Arithmetic." Warren 
Colburn's name should be written in letters of gold for 
this service.* 

Subsequent to the year 1820, very great improve- 
ments have been made in most other branches. These 
improvements have consisted very much in the simplifi- 
cation, to a certain extent, of the subjects themselves, and 
in avoiding the errors of the Old plan, and addressing 
mainly the reasoning powers by leading them onward by 
an inductive analysis to a clear comprehension of the 
subjects, rather than relying simply on the committing of 
forms of words to memory. 

I am aware, as I have before hinted, that this simplifying 
process has been abused. It has undoubtedly been in 
some cases carried too far. Authors have sprung up 

* It was not my design to mention by name any book published 
within the present century, but it was necessary to depart from t 
resolution in order to show where the reform began. 



ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 19 

who have assumed that neither teachers nor pupils who 
should use their books would possess to any extent the 
power of thought. These authors have not only minced 
their precepts so very fine as to have nothing left of 
them, but they have attempted to supply the mental gul- 
lets through which they were to be swallowed. They 
have filled their books with questions whose name is Ze- 
gion, and such questions as absolutely put to the blush 
the spirit of enquiry itself, — and then, as if mind could 
not think, from the plenitude of their own wisdom and 
benevolence, they have added the answers, and such an- 
swers as the idiot himself could scarcely miss. We have 
had "inductive" and "productive" systems, and systems 
in which the inductive and productive have been joined 
in matrimony, which, in some cases acting as positive and 
negative quantities, have cancelled each other, and left 
the covers of the books with nothing between them ! 

But while these abuses are justly despised, by judi- 
cious teachers, it is very certain there have been within 
twenty-five years, many solid improvements in this de- 
partment. 

III. A COMPARISON OF THE BRANCHES FORMERLY 
TAUGHT, AND THOSE NOW BROUGHT WITHIN REACH 
OF THE PUPILS OF COMMON SCHOOLS WILL SHOW 
AN ADVANCEMENT. 

Under the topic of school books I have mentioned the 
branches taught in the public schools up to the close of 
the last century. Among these English Grammar was 
not found. Except those comparatively few men who 
were educated at college, scarcely one in a thousand 
could know anything of the grammatical structure of his 



20 MR. 

own language, till within the last half century. Teach- 
ers of the common schools even within twenty-five 
years, were not unfrequently found who did not pretend 
to any knowledge of this kind. And a very large pro- 
portion of the common teachers knew little more than the 
forms of declension and conjugation. Yet now grammar 
is one of the legally required branches, and scarcely a 
school can be found, except in some extremely unfavora- 
ble locality, where grammar is not respectably — though 
not now perfectly taught ; — and the number of those who 
now speak and write grammatically, compared with those 
who did so in an equal population thirty years ago, is not 
less than one hundred to one. I confess the imperfect 
teaching of this branch, and the imperfect learning of it 
now; I know there are many who acquire the shadow 
without the substance, — yet the gain is so very great, 
that it is alone quite an important item of advancement. 
So too, but a few years ago, the books on Natural Phi- 
losophy and Algebra were prepared exclusively for col- 
lege students, and the common people were shut out 
from any participation in a knowledge of these useful 
branches. These are now brought, to a certain extent, 
within reach of the common scholars, and most of the 
elements of these branches are grasped and mastered by 
the youth at the public schools. The same might be 
said of several other studies now successfully taught in 
the common schoo s. 

IV. A COMPARISON OF THE TEACHERS AS THEF WERE 
AND AS THEY ARE, WILL SHOW A CONSIDERABLE 
ADVANCEMENT. 

It would ill become one of an existing class to detract 
from the worth or the ability of his predecessors, and 



ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 21 

engage in pronouncing a eulogium upon his cotempora- 
ries. This is a task I shall not undertake. I can by no 
means undervalue those venerable men who have, in past 
generations, unobtrusively labored, according to their 
opportunity, to give wisdom, strength and character to 
the minds of a growing people. Many of these were 
men who would grace any profession, and would be hon- 
ored in any age. Many of them, I doubt not, have ex- 
erted influences for good which shall extend in widening 
and in glorious results, and be felt with gratitude long af- 
ter the name of an Alexander, a Ceesar or a Napoleon 
.shall have faded from the memory and the praise of 
men. 

It shall content me then to leave the merits of past 
teachers to the living records they have made for them- 
selves in the memory and the estimation of those who 
knew them. 

Yet, excepting a few who rose above their circum- 
stances and the age in which they lived, I have supposed 
there would be no arrogance in assuming for the present 
occupants of the field a moderate superiority. The pub- 
lic sentiment surely demands more of a teacher now than 
ever before, and the legislation of several of the States 
following up this sentiment, or rather giving voice and 
utterance to it, has prescribed requirements which would 
have excluded a large portion of those in office thirty 
years ago. This sentiment has given rise to a spirit of 
enquiry and discussion which has resulted in the accumu- 
lation of a vast amount of light upon the qualifications, 
the duties, the modes of government and methods of in- 
struction, the motives to be addressed, the incentives to 
ke employed, indeed upon every topic that regards the 



22 MR. page's lecture. 

success of the teacher. This same sentiment has given 
rise to the establishment of institutions in some of the 
States, expressly dedicated to the suitable prepara- 
tion of candidates for this important office. It has given 
rise to numerous associations, likewise, of those actually 
engaged in the service, together with others friendly to 
the object, the very design of whose meetings is to 
purify and elevate the profession of the teacher. Indeed 
this same public sentiment has gone so far as to demand 
that teaching should be a profession; that teachers, in the 
more important schools at least, should throw themselves 
upon their resources as teachers for support, and, giving 
up mainly other pursuits — except so far as to keep pace 
with the progress of the times — devote their time, talents, 
study, zeal and energy to their duty as a profession. 
Public sentiment has even gone farther, in some instances 
at least, and added the remuneration of a profession, thus 
leaving the teacher free from other cares, to devote him- 
self to what should be his only care — to be worthy of the 
age in which he lives. 

With all these facilities then, it is certain the teachers 
of the present day should be better than their predeces- 
sors. If they are not, under all these accumulated cir- 
cumstances in their favor, it is their own fault. 

Having dared to assume for the teachers of the present 
day some moderate degree of superiority over their pre- 
decessors even of no very remote age, it will reasonably 
be expected of me, that I should intimate in what par- 
ticulars such superiority consists. From this task I shall 
not shrink. In few words, I should say it consists in a 
more philosophical preparation for their duties, and in a 
more thorough knowledge of the principles of the branches 



ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 23 

to be taught. Teaching was formerly entered upon by 
most aspirants to the office, without deep reflection as to 
the nature of the responsibilities assumed, or a clear per- 
ception of the importance of being specially furnished 
for one of the most delicate and difficult offices — that of 
operating upon the human intellect. It is true that very 
many in former times entered upon the responsibilities of 
teaching, as they " let themselves out'''' to perform manual 
labor, having a view almost entirely to the recompense; 
and apparently without the least suspicion that higher 
qualifications were necessary for the one employment 
than for the others. They could perhaps follow the for- 
mal letter of a book upon a given branch, but they knew 
but little of the why and the wherefore^ and they knew 
still less of the most successful methods of reaching and 
interesting the minds of the pupils, and exciting in them 
the spirit of inquiry. It is very much to be doubted 
whether one in a score of the common class of teachers 
twenty-five years ago had any higher ideas of an educa- 
tion, than the storing up in the memory of a collection 
of facts — which would constitute, as far as it went, a cer- 
tain amount of knowledge. They seemed, at least, nev- 
er to have dreamed that truly educating a mind consists 
first in inspiring it with a thirst for improvement — growth 
— enlargement; and then in disciplining its powers so far, 
that with the ordinary means it could go on to improve 
itself. They seemed not to consider that much more 
depends upon the formation of correct habits of study — 
of reasoning and of invention, than upon the amount of 
knowledge which can be imparted in a given time. 

I dare say many of us remember the manner in which 
any developements of the spirit of inquiry were wont to 



24 MR. page's lecture. 

be treated in our schoolboy days. I may never forget 
the passage I first made through the Rule of Three, and 
the manner in which my manifold perplexities respecting 
" direct and inverse" proportion were solved. " Sir," 
said I after puzzling a long time over " more requiring 
more, and less requiring less" — " will you tell me why I 
sometimes multiply the second and third terms together, 
and divide by the first — and at other times multiply the 
first and second, and divide by the third?" " Why be- 
cause ' more requires more' sometimes and sometimes 
it requires less — to be sure. Havn't you read the rule, 
my boy?" " Yes sir, I can repeat the rule, but I don't 
understand it." "Why, it is because c more requires 
more and less requires less '!" " But why sir, do I mul- 
tiply as the rule says?" " Why, because 'more re- 
quires more and less requires less,' — see the rule says 
so." "I know the rule says so, but I wished to under- 
stand why " "Why? why?" looking at me as if 

idiocy itself trembled before him — " why? — why because 
the rule says so; — don't you see it? — gej^More requires 
more and less requires less;" — and in the midst of this 
inexplicable combination of more and less I shrunk away 
to my seat, to follow the rule because " it said so;" and 
when I had wrought out all the problems and got the an- 
swers without comprehending a single step in the process, 
1 was told that I was a very good scholar, — and to be 
sure I did not go unrewarded; for at the examination a 
few weeks after, the visiters were told that I had been 
through the Rule of Three; and as proof of my profi- 
ciency, I was called upon to recite the very rule, which 
I did, not failing to lay all suitable emphasis upon "more 
requiring more and less requiring less." 



ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 25 

This indeed is a specimen of the manner in which 
many a boy was "carried through" arithmetic twenty 
years ago. The "rule says so" — was the cure for all 
inquisitiveness in the scholar. It was so in other branch- 
es. The letter of the book was to be followed, and any 
attempt to peep behind the veil was discouraged and even 
frowned upon. 

It must be confessed that we have not attained even at 
this day to a complete triumph over such abuses of the 
profession, as *s implied by entering it without prepara- 
tion, and exercising it without judgment or tact. Yet it 
must be said that in these respects there has been a great 
gain. The number has increased, very much, of those 
who do thoroughly understand the nature of a teacher's 
duties, and the object at which he is to aim. The pro- 
portion is very much greater of those who understand 
the principles — the very elements of what they teach, 
and who are more anxious to inculcate the " why and the 
wherefore" than to store the memory with unintelligible 
and barren facts. 

Another improvement of the present teachers over 
their predecessors, I conceive, consists in the better 
methods of imparting instruction. Classification is more 
thought of than formerly, and the new modes of con- 
ducting recitations, in which the object is not simply to 
apply a test of the scholar's application to his lesson, but 
also to ascertain- how far the understanding has grasped' 
the subject. Formerly recitations were generally so 
conducted, that only one individual came in contact with 
the teacher at a time; and even if he could and would 
explain the principles of the lesson, his time thus poorly 
economized would fail for the purpose. 
3 



26 MR. page's lecture. 

Visible illustrations are much more relied upon by 
teachers now than formerly, and by means of the black- 
board and other helps, a class of ten or fifteen may now 
be as easily instructed, and on account of the saving of 
time, very much more thoroughly instructed, than an in- 
dividual could be under the old process. Except in 
those schools where irregularity of attendance interrupts 
and destroys all classification, very much is gained by the 
new plan. 

The introduction of system into our schools by most 
teachers at present, is a great gain. By system, I mean 
a definite arrangement in the day^s-work, so that every 
class has something to do, and a definite time to do it in. 
A very prominent defect in many of the old schools, 
(and perhaps some of the modern ones,) was, that the 
business of the day would come along u just as it happen- 
ed" — by chance. If one scholar or class was not ready, 
another would be called, and there being no particular 
time for the various exercises, there would very likely be 
no exercises for any time, and the teacher would hardly 
know how to find employment for himself in the school. 

Now, a teacher is very justly estimated by the judg- 
ment and tact with which he divides his time among his 
own various duties, and the time of his scholars between 
their studies and recitations. I consider this indeed the 
principal key to success, both in government and instruc- 
tion; and whenever I find a teacher who fails in this — 
(and I am persuaded the number is much less than for- 
merly) — I set it down that such a teacher is very far be- 
hind the age, and has no claim as yet to the reputation of 
an able and successful Instructor. 

The following incident will illustrate this point. Hav- 



ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 27 

to visit, in an official capacity, a school 
which had been kept by a young teacher some two 
weeks, she very naturally asked — " what shall I do 
first?" " Do precisely as you would if I had not come 
in this afternoon." She looked a little perplexed. At 
length she inquiringly asked — ■" Is the geography lesson 
ready?" " Yes, m'm"— " No, m'm"-— " Yes, m'm"— 
was the ambiguous reply from the class. There was so 
much of veto in the looks of the young geographers, that 
st amounted to prohibition. u Well, are the scholars in 
Colburn's arithmetic ready?" This was said with more 
of hope, but the same ambiguous answer was vociferated 
from all parts of the room. The teacher looked despair- 
ingly, — but recollecting one more resort she said, u Ts 
the grammar class ready ?" Again came the changes on 
" Yes, m'm" and " No, m'm." The teacher gave up and 
asked what she should do. She was again told to go on 
as usual for that afternoon. At the close of the school a 
single hint was suggested to her, — viz., that she should 
make out a list of her scholars' duties, and the times when 
they should be expected to recite their respective les- 
sons. She was told that it would be well to explain this 
plan of her day's work to her school in the morning — and 
then never again ask if a class was ready. The hint was 
taken; and on subsequent visitations, the several classes 
were ever ready to respond to the call of the teacher. 

The government of schools has changed within fifty 
years, and it is believed the change is for the better. In 
olden times the rod was the principal engine in securing 
good order. A teacher who could whip "right smart" 
was considered well qualified to govern. A word and 
a blow was the motto, and we are told on good 



2S MR. page's lecture. 

authority the blow frequently went before the word. The 
sensibilities of parents were formerly less thought of than 
at present, and few teachers had learned the art of ap- 
pealing to the better feelings of pupils and of controling 
youthful buoyancy and glee, and turning it even to some 
good purpose. Something on this point has been gained. 
Though there are some who are yet too old-fashioned to 
abandon the rod altogether; who know, or think they 
know, enough of human nature to convince them that 
power must exist, to be applied in some extreme cases; 
who, while they rely mainly for success upon those higher 
and better motives which may be so addressed as to con- 
trol forty-nine out of fifty, yet would not suffer even the 
fiftieth to go on to his own ruin and to the injury of the 
whole school, for the leant of a whipping; yet there are 
but very few teachers now, who claim respectability in 
their profession, who make whipping the u daily food" 
of their pupils. Children are not yet quite so perfectly 
governed at home as to render in all cases such aliment 
entirely unnecessary; and until parents do attain to some- 
thing like good discipline at the fireside, they certainly 
should not too loudly complain of the teacher whose 
trials are far greater than their own, and whose advantages 
for gaining a knowledge of the temper and disposition of 
those to be governed are far more limited. Whipping 
is now getting to be the good teacher's strange iDork; it 
is seldom resorted to by the good teacher, and then only 
after other methods have been patiently tried without 
success. It is given as calomel should be given, only 
in cases where the disease cannot be cured by milder 
and safer medicines, and, where uncured, it would prove 
fatal. Calomel is better than death; and whipping, bad 



ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION 29 

as it is, is better than uncontroled self-will and self-de- 
struction. But for ordinary purposes the good teacher 
can find easier avenues to the mind and heart of ordina- 
ry pupils, than breaking their heads or scoring their 
bodies; and it is claimed for the existing generation of 
teachers that these avenues are oftener chosen than for- 
merly. 

In making the foregoing comparisons between the 
present class of teachers and their predecessors, I have 
spoken in general terms — of whole classes. There 
were undoubtedly very many in by-gone years who 
taught successfully and understanding^ ; who knew well 
the means of access to the human mind, and the kinds of 
diet upon which it should be nurtured. So now, it is 
frankly confessed there are some who assume to teach 
who are destitute — totally destitute — of the essential 
qualifications, not only in a literary point of view, but in 
regard to the intellectual abilities, judgment — tact — ener- 
gy — perseverance. There are those, who, lacking the 
proper motives, seek this employment, and having gained 
admittance to the sanctuary of mind in a district for a 
single term, do more to mar and deform the delicate yet 
susceptible material they attempt so rudely to shape, than 
the judicious labor of a skilful hand can restore in a 
course of years. Yet it is believed the number of such 
crude operatives is diminishing, and giving place to more 
solid wisdom and worth; — and if this be true, if teachers 
are to be found, who answer the demands of a more en- 
lightened and scrutinizing age, and the number of such 
is gradually increasing, then in this department we have 
made some advancement. 

I have wished somewhere in this lecture, to bear my 
testimony in favor of what I consider another improve- 
3* 



30 



ment in our schools, but have been at a loss whether to 
place it under the head of school discipline or some 
other. I refer to the introduction of Music into some of 
our schools as a distinct branch of instruction. To say- 
nothing of the facility with which it may be taught to 
pupils of tender age, or the advantages which would fol- 
low from an increased taste for this acquirement in a 
community, it is not to be despised as a means of disci- 
pline. Music of itself is not destitute of power over 
the moral feelings, and when associated with suitable sen- 
timents, and sung by the "many voiced throng of a busy 
school," I have never known it fail of producing good 
results. It may be pursued without detriment to pro- 
gress in other branches, as, when judiciously managed, 
it fills up those portions of time which would be other- 
wise lost in idleness. It serves as a pleasant recreation, 
after the closer duties of the school, and seasonably in- 
troduced, often proves a safety valve, through which a 
love of vociferation and activity, that would otherwise 
find an escapement in whispering and bustling, is allowed 
to pass off in a more harmless and more pleasing way. 
For these and many other reasons, I consider the intro- 
duction of music into our public schools a decided im- 
provement. 

V. PUBLIC SENTIMENT HAS IMPROVED IN REGARD 
TO PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 

I have already shown that this sentiment has done 
much directly to improve teachers. Yet I have not 
covered the whole ground. For more than one hundred 
and fifty years from the settlement of the country, the 
public schools did not enjoy the highest place in the af- 



ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 31 

fections even of those who established and supported 
them. And even down to a very recent date, they were 
regarded as the fit place for the education of the common 
people, while most of those whose means would afford 
the expense, sought better advantages for their children 
at the academy or favorite private school. In this way, 
some of the best influence has been withdrawn from the 
public schools. As many of the best scholars were sent 
away, — the very scholars whose parents could afford to 
secure for them a constant and a somewhat permanent 
attendance, — these schools became less interesting to 
the teachers, who were obliged to labor with pupils 
whose attendance was necessarily subject to much irregu- 
larity and interruption. Besides, a notion seemed to be 
entertained, that at the public school, there w r ere remark- 
able facilities for acquiring vicious habits; in other words, 
an impression seemed to prevail among those who could 
afford to pay for private tuition, that their sons must of 
necessity be contaminated by mixing with the ruder lads 
of the " town school." Beyond this, moreover, the 
scholars of the wealthy being provided for at the academy, 
the parents took no interest in the success of the public 
school, or the character of its teacher. No matter who 
he was, or how little he might know, if he were but hired 
at a low rate, so as to keep the taxes down, it was the 
same to them. The affections of such parents being 
given to those favorite private teachers to whom they had 
entrusted their children, the public servant was seldom 
noticed as a man, or cherished by their society as an ac- 
quaintance. Hence a good instructor could scarcely be 
found, who would be willing to teach a public school 
longer than his own necessities required. He would 
either desire the better pay, or the more flattering caresses 



32 MR. page's lecture. 

bestowed upon the private teacher, and as soon as an 
opening should occur to gratify his aspirations, either to 
money or popularity, he would leave the public school 
to seek it. 

It is not a little remarkable too, that during all the 
period above described, the school committees generally 
consisted of the very men who never sent their children 
to the public school. Whenever they entered the school, 
it was evident upon the very face of things, that they 
were overlooking an institution in which they had little 
confidence. Indeed, irr many places, and for a long, 
dark period, the very name of " town school " excited in 
the minds of perhaps the majority, some such idea as 
we associate with the alms house, — a sort of necessary 
evil to provide for those whose want of means prevented 
their providing for themselves. It was not uncommon 
to see a boy, who had arrived at fourteen or fifteen years, 
and had attained to some scholarship, when asked by 
others where he went to school? — with confusion hang 
down his head, and with conscious mortification, make 
the humbling confession in half stifled accents, that he 
attended the " town school." 

A sentiment of this sort gave rise a long time ago to a 
large number of academies in different parts of New 
England, which were excellent institutions in themselves, 
but which worked, nevertheless, a very unfavorable in- 
fluence upon public schools. It is not the design of 
these remarks, of course, to undervalue these institutions, 
particularly when established among a sparse population, 
where public instruction in the higher branches could 
not advantageously be maintained. Very great blessings 
unquestionably have been secured by the facilities thus 
offered to those who sought a more liberal education than 



ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 33 

\ 

could be afforded at the public expense. Yet whenever 
they have been brought into competition with common 
I schools, devoted mainly to instruction in the branches 
there taught, dividing the youth in the village into two 
classes — those who could and those who could not afford 
the expense of tuition, and of course withdrawing the in- 
terest and influence of the more wealthy portion of the 
community from the public school, there their influence, 
(perhaps without any designed hostility, except it were 
shown in diminishing the public appropriations) — has 
been most decidedly unfavorable to the cause of public 
instruction. 

This condition of things being introduced, went on to 
increase; because the more academies were multiplied, 
the worse would be the public schools, and hence the 
people reasoned — "the worse the public schools, the more 
need of academies." In consequence of this, in almost 
every large town, the private schools became much more 
numerous than the public, the money expended for them 
swelling far beyond the sum appropriated for the public 
schools; and in almost every country village, an academy, 
painted white, with a bell and a steeple, while it added 
beauty to the village, and gave literary laws to those of 
the place who could afford it, wrought in many cases lite- 
rary starvation to those who depended upon the town school 
for mental training. So true is this, that it is relied upon 
as a general principle, that where the private schools are 
most numerous and fully attended, and where an academy 
of the kind described is located and in flourishing condi- 
tion, there you will find the public schools in the most 
deplorable state, because they have fallen into the most 
deplorable neglect. 

So far had this state of feeling been carried, that there 



34 MR. page's lecture. 

were very many who were ready to declare against all 
public schools as a positive evil, and who would have 
been willing, at any moment, to cut off the supplies for 
their support. Complaining of the hardship of paying 
for schools they did not use, they would say, " The pub- 
lic schools are so wretched that I cannot trust my chil- 
dren there; if they were in such condition that I could 
send to them, I should gladly pay for them!" Just as if 
under this starving process, they could have been better! 
and just as if it had never entered their minds, that by 
first sending their children, and then giving their encour- 
agement to the school, and their countenance and coope- 
ration to the teacher, was the only way to make them the 
very schools they desired. 

But the time has at length come for the eyes of a blind 
public to be opened. They have begun to make the 
discovery that poor public schools — maintained just to 
fulfil the letter of the law, is indeed but poor economy. 
They have begun to perceive that paying for two sorts of 
schools, when they need pay for but one, is paying but 
" too dearly for the whistle." They have begun to learn 
that public schools, and public teachers, if they be but 
encouraged and patronized and smiled upon, may be as 
good at least as private ones, — and they have somehow 
found out that the rich and poor may meet at the same 
school, sit at the same desk, recite in the same class, 
and cherish and reverence the same teacher, and all this 
without any more " contamination" than has been expe- 
rienced elsewhere! In several of our large cities and in 
most of our large towns, the tide of feeling has already 
turned toward the public schools. School committees 
are chosen who send to them, more liberal appropriation 
is made for them, more is expected of them, and it is not 



ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 35 

saying too much to add, that under these circumstances, 
very much more is accomplished in them. 

Thus much public sentiment has done. But this sen- 
timent is a growing sentiment. In almost every town 
and village in this state, there is an increasing interest in 
the public schools. Through the labors and measures of 
the Board of Education, by their able Secretary, a large 
amount of statistical information has been laid before the 
people, showing the comparative expense of public and 
private instruction. And judging from the Reports of 
school committees in every direction, and from the in- 
creased amount of appropriation in a large number of 
towns within a few of the last years, I think we cannot 
err in viewing this change of public sentiment as a great 
point gained toward improvement in the means of public 
instruction. 

If any should suppose, from the manner in which I 
have spoken of private schools and academies, that I 
have any hostility toward them or toward their instructors, 
I entirely disclaim any such motive. I speak as I should 
feel bound in truth to speak, if I were such a teacher 
myself, and as I suppose every one must speak, who has 
considered the subject, and who sincerely desires to see 
the well-being of the whole people — " the rich and the 
poor together" — in the highest degree promoted. My 
own views have been openly uttered, not because (< / 
love Ccesar less, but because I love Rome more." 

Thus I have passed with great rapidity over a few 
terns in which I think the cause of public instruction has 
made a decided improvement on the whole. 

I might remark still further on the diffusion of informa- 
tion in the community, as to what is needed to render 
our favorite system more perfect and complete. Several 



36 MR. page's lecture. 

journals are now exclusively devoted to the cause, and 
are widely circulated through the whole body of the 
people. The whole business of Education is undergoing 
a discussion, not only in the public assembly and the halls 
of legislation, but at the smaller gatherings, and even 
about the social board, and at the firesides of the com- 
mon people. Improvements in the means or methods 
of one teacher, are soon reported, and, by means of lec- 
tures and the press, go forth to benefit others, and thus 
become a part of the common stock. The people be- 
coming better informed as to what a good school should 
accomplish, expect more of the school which they sup- 
port, — and their expectation is sure to find either its re- 
sponse or its remedy. 

In the preceding pages, I have been endeavoring to 
make it evident that an advance has been made in the 
means and methods of public instruction. Yet let 
me not be considered as looking entirely on the bright 
side of the picture, or as being moved by spirits too 
buoyant, and a zeal excessively confident. I am per- 
fectly aware that all great reforms have moved slowly, 
and that, as a general thing, those enterprizes which have 
accomplished most for mankind, have not burst upon the 
world with the sudden and surprizing glare of the me- 
teor's flash, but have dawned upon it, like the gentler 
coming in of the summer's morning, the light and the 
heat gradually increasing " unto the perfect day." And, 
(to carry the illustration a little farther,) as, while the 
light of the morning pours in upon the world, there are 
always caverns " deep and drear," from which darkness 
retires but slowly and reluctantly, and even the summer's 
sun may scarcely dissolve the ice which reposes in their 
depths, or dissipate the damps which hover about their 



ADVANCEMENT IN PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 37 

cheerless recesses, — so in the moral world, we seldom 
find the work of reform perfectly triumphant, or its re- 
sults universally successful. It is thus with the reform 
we have been considering. Prejudices as chilling and 
unrelenting as the iceberg, still are to be met with in cer- 
tain quarters; and ignorance, as dense and impenetrable 
as the darkness which hung over Egypt, still holds its un- 
disturbed and cruel sway over many enslaved and craven 
minds. Prescriptive usages, and an attachment even to 
the errors and mistakes of ancestry, still oppose them- 
selves to the progress of reform in many directions. 
Avarice and short sighted calculation, are not without 
their influence in retarding improvement among us. The 
dread of innovation, based perhaps on the failure of some 
past innovations, is a motive with many. And then, alas! 
the adventurous, unchastened and misdirected zeal of 
some of the friends of the cause; the wild and unwar- 
rantable schemes of some of the dreamy movers of the 
public opinion; the false and ridiculous pretensions of 
the barefaced egotist, who advertises himself into the 
favor of the credulous, in order to enrich himself with 
their coin, and to impoverish them with his own counter- 
feits, — all these, constitute no inconsiderable drawback 
upon the progress of real improvement, and oppose a 
formidable barrier to the confidence of an abused and 
reasonably cautious public. 

After all then, very much remains to be known and to 
be done on this subject. The profession of teaching 
has yet by no means attained the summit of perfection, 
nor are all our systems free from impediments and abuses. 
The public appropriations are in many cases graduated 
by a mistaken policy, if not by the narrowest parsimony. 
4 



38 MR. PAGE'S LECTURE. 

Then it not unfrequently happens that the voters in the 
town meeting, after appropriating the money, limited as 
that may be, either by an injudicious choice of commit- 
tees, or by some ill-judged restrictions upon the measures 
to be used, embarrass all parties concerned, and bring 
down upon their offspring the deplorable calamity of in- 
competent teachers, and miserable schools. Small as 
the sums are, which are raised for the support of schools, 
what an amount is annually raised to be misspent, if not 
entirely thrown away! 

It well becomes us, then, as a free people, as a people 
whose very institutions are based upon the supposition of 
a diffusion of intelligence through the whole community, 
to see to it that we are not surpassed in our efforts, and 
are actually outstripped in our onward progress by some 
of the monarchical nations of Europe. 

It well becomes us not only to be liberal in the appro- 
priation of the means, but to be well informed as to the 
methods of so worthy an enterprize; and if we are con- 
vinced we have made some advances, either in the 
methods or the means, let every citizen bestir himself to 
attain more light and a better zeal; to open a more libe- 
ral hand, and exercise a stricter oversight; to compre- 
hend more fully our deficiencies, and to devise and en- 
courage real improvements, till we can confer upon our 
offspring privileges, such as no other people have ever 
enjoyed, and hand down to our posterity, in coming time, 
the system perfected, the institution of which our fathers 
achieved for us. May our wisdom, our zeal, and our 
efforts, merit the gratitude of our descendants as justly 
and as richly as our ancestors deserve our own! 



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